Intellectual Property Law

Google Wall Street Journal - They haven?t got the goods

By wu

There is a story in today’s Wall Street Journal about Google’s supposed abandonment of Net Neutrality principles.

As someone who dabbles in journalism now and then, I can see the obvious temptation that shapes this story.  It’s the Google - Heart of Darkness plot — Google, the company that does no evil, turns to the dark side.   It’s a tempting story.  I’ve even written versions of it myself.

On the other hand, you actually have to have the goods to have a story.  You need a Kurtz.  And as much as the story tries, there isn’t one here.

What the WSJ is on about is content caching; something that’s been going on for more than a decade.  If you have billions of users, like Google or even the WSJ, you need lots of cached copies of your content for it to deliver fast.  If you are a personal web-site (like this one) you don’t need caching.    Caching is one of the advantanges money can buy, but no one has ever suggested its an unfair advantage.

Nor is this anything new, even co-location.   AT&T, for example, has been offering services like this since at least 2000.      Its never been part of the principle net neutrality debate.

The emptiest part of the WSJ piece are the insinuations that Obama’s positions are changing.  While I cannot speak on behalf of the Obama team, there is just no evidence to suggest that.  None at all.   Except for a random quote from Rick Whitt saying that the Obama team has been quiet.  Well, more like, they are busy with other stuff — caching policy is priority # 8931 at best.

Full post as published by What’s New With Wu on December 15, 2008 (boomark / email).